The present invention relates generally to an icemaker for a refrigerator. More particularly, the present invention relates to an automatic icemaker for use on a door of a refrigerator.
Generally, a refrigerator includes a freezer compartment and a fresh food compartment which are partitioned from each other to store various foods at low temperatures in appropriate states for a relatively long time.
It is now common practice in the art of refrigerators to provide an automatic icemaker. In a “bottom freezer” type refrigerator where the freezer compartment is arranged below or beneath a top mounted fresh food compartment, convenience necessitates that the automatic icemaker be disposed in a thermally insulated ice compartment mounted or formed on the door for the top mounted fresh food compartment, and ice be delivered through an opening on the door for the fresh food compartment. Also, in a “side by side” type refrigerator where the freezer compartment is arranged next to the fresh food compartment, the automatic icemaker sometimes is also disposed on the door for one of the freezer compartment and the fresh food compartment, and ice is delivered through an opening formed on that door.
Positioning the automatic icemaker on the door of a refrigerator presents new challenges not previously encountered. One of such new challenges is water spillage problem. More specifically, when the door is opened or closed while water in the icemaker is not frozen, there is a good chance that the unfrozen water will spill out of the ice mold body of the icemaker. This is because the frontal opening of each ice chamber is not completely covered by the ice stripper. Such water spilling is not desirable because it results in no or smaller ice cubes. Additionally, the spilled water will likely fall into the ice storage bin positioned below the icemaker, causing the ice cubes in the ice storage bin to clump together.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an automatic icemaker which has a water spillage arrangement that not only prevents unfrozen water from escaping the ice mold body so that the water can be frozen into ice cubes, but also allows the ice cubes to be properly ejected from the ice mold body.